Assign2 - PSYC 100 Introduction to Psychology Paper #2...

PSYC 100 – Introduction to Psychology Paper #2 Reaching a Behavioral Goal through Conditioning This paper will be a report of a study you will conduct over the next 4 weeks. The participant in the study will be you. Your objective is to identify a behavior you would like to increase or decrease in frequency, and apply conditioning principles to move closer to your desired goal. It is extremely important that you follow these guidelines in selecting the behavior and implementing a conditioning approach. If you violate these guidelines, you do so at your own risk and the report will not be accepted for credit. As indicated in the syllabus and at the start of this course, one of the goals of taking psychology courses is to develop skills to improve quality of life. In this project, you will attempt to improve the quality of your own life by focusing on a desirable behavior change. It is entirely unacceptable to attempt to increase behavior that is psychologically or physically unhealthy to yourself, others, or any aspect of the environment. Examples of positive behaviors would be to increase studying, appropriate exercise, healthy eating, kind or polite actions toward others, keeping in touch with people, offering praise and encouragement to others, and being more productive at work. Select something your parent or other caretaker would support you in doing, and if you have any doubts, ask them, your TA or your instructor. If you aim to increase a behavior, you will need to apply principles of learning (classical or operant conditioning, most likely operant) that result in a behavior increasing in frequency. If you aim to decrease an undesired behavior (such as socializing when you should be studying, cursing, driving aggressively or criticizing others), you will apply principles that decrease the frequency of behaviors. Again, you are not to introduce any stimulus that can cause you, anyone or anything pain, injury, illness or serious hardship. Due to our limited timeframe, select a behavior that tends to occur frequently, at least

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